


All is fair in love and war... Or so they say

by TheVoidThatStaresBack



Category: Original Work, Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan
Genre: Alternative Universe- Percy Jackson, Character Death, Child of Hades - Freeform, Child of Hecate-Freeform, Child of persephone, Child slavery, F/M, I usually abandon stories because i get discouraged, Idiots, M/M, Mind Control, Multi, Other, Polyamory, Slow Burn, Soulmates, Swearing, This is my first published story, Witches, a number of years after the Trials of Apollo which i havent finished reading, all feedback is feedback i guess, also tell me if you hate it, but im not sorry if i commit gramatical crimes, do tell me if you enjoy it, english is not my first language, killing with your mind, might include explicit sex, not actually about Riordan's story, only set on the same universe, poison use, witchery
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-07
Updated: 2021-01-13
Packaged: 2021-03-18 07:28:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,663
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28614366
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheVoidThatStaresBack/pseuds/TheVoidThatStaresBack
Summary: The day that the world's youngest witch, and a former witch's slave met, the countdown to Zeus' most dreaded day, starts at twelve o'clock.That hour, of course, is irrelevant. What's important is that it has been exactly 10 centuries since the two halves of a double and ancient soul had been together.An ancient promise looms over the horizon, reflecting dangerously on the roofs of Olympus' luxurious white buildings. What the gods themselves set in motion can never truly be stopped, even if it had to take two halves of the same soul to reincarnate thousands of times to get it right.





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> So, most of the story belongs to me, even if a lot of ideas have been inspired on different works i have obsessed myself with lately. This story takes place in Rick Riordan's universe of the Greek pantheon, but mostly twisted to fit the whims of my devil fingers, enjoy.

Prologue

They were the first ones. King Zeus, after bringing them to existence a while ago on their lush virgin lands, had given them the power for life and magic. They would be the next generation to rule, after he and his brothers finished shaping the world to their liking. They took the offered weapons, the armor, and their purpose, and began roaming the world. They lived for many years that way, fighting mighty beasts, hunting delicious meat, tasting sweet fruit. They became acquainted with the world that surrounded them and how it worked, alongside its many systems. They walked the young planet for centuries by themselves before another one like them appeared on the horizon. 

Their hair was long and much lighter than theirs, and their four pair of eyes were all blue, unlike the combination of their own, brown and silver. They had doman over water sources. Their language was not the same, but they understood each other rather easily, observing their body language and feeling each other's emotions. Both creatures took to walk the planet together. A few others appeared, over the course of the next centuries. Some of them stayed longer than others. Some even encountered each other again and again. And as centuries gave way to millenniums, the world began to grow, the land became bigger, the animals and ecosystems grew stronger, with their care and balance. Helped by the cycle that the old gods and the new ones brought to existence, they were the very first domino pieces to fall, creating the seeds of what still goes on today. And as they layed with each other, the way the gods had recently taught them, even more and more of them plagued the world. But still, none of them spoke the same language, and the first ones, were frustrated, by their incapability to communicate with their equals. 

"You know?" they said one day to the King of the Gods, as they strolled through a garden. "When we are the ones ruling, we are going to make a single language, to be able to understand my kin, what do you think they have to say to us? would it be interesting things? I would love to learn about their domains. Life is beautiful, but i want to know about the rest" 

They raised their faces to the sky, and heard the thunder before they saw it in the sky. They didn't knew it at the time but those words, were the last defining action in a discussion the Gods had been having for the past century. And as dark clouds loomed over the horizon, brewing a storm that would last for a decade, the gods grabbed their weapons, and prepared themselves for a war they would only barely win, slicing the souls of their humans in half, forever, casting them to Hades to punish them for eternity, for being what challenged the power of the gods. 

Hades, who had been on his kingdom for a while now, wasn't told about the war, or the decision to kill humanity. Sentenced to punishment by the rest of Olympus, Hades had no more option than to give their fractured souls the harsh trestment they had been primised. But after Prometheus experimented with a new kind of weakened humans, he offered them the option to reincarnate, try to find their other half and earn a different kind of eternity. 

The two halves of the first one have been back to life again and again, each time more desperate than the last one. Only to arrive to the Underworld, go through the gates and under the paws of cerbero, alone, over and over and over again, a sliced piece of soul, surrounded by complete ones, that walked towards their new eternity with a serene face. Each time, each half had found themselves wanting to shriek, to cry and demand to be put together again. But they had already tried that, the first few times, and it hadn't worked. Their search, while alive, became nothing more than a phantom need to find something, someone to easy the ache of their heart. But no mater what name they had, how many times they decided this time it would surely work, and threw themselves to life again, they could not remember, or even begin to search for their other part. 

But one night, two women, separated by merely two states, broke their water at the same time, and two babies, one with brown eyes and the other with silver ones, took their first breath at the same time, and began to cry in unison. As three gods turned their eyes to the small, sliced souls of their newborns, an old threat was woven out of the miasma that was randomness, and the stitches to the end and the beginning were placed on the fabric of destiny. 


	2. Blooms of magic and poison

.  
I  
There are many reasons why Derek’s life sucks. The very first one, chronologically , was that she was born from a different woman than their mother. No one dared to speak her name, and she didn’t even knew it. She knew nothing about her real mother, and was not allowed to ask.  
The other reason why her life sucks, is the mother she lives with. She is a violent woman. Angry and controlling most of the time, she made Derek's life feel like a torture chamber.  
Derek hated that woman, and how loud her feelings were. Her desperation and impatience rafiated off her body like shaky weaves of the most uncomfortable energy Derek had felt on her skin. It was itchy, suffocating, and it make her want to bolt. They often were involved in shouting matches that left both exhausted , most of the time, Derek's reading rights were taken away. As well as her play time cancelled. Socialization was not allowed as well, nor going out or watching tv. Nothing that wasn't school stuff was allowed in those times. That happened more often than her little body could process. Rage and desperation seemed to bleed into every part of her existence. Hardening her muscles into hard fibers of tension that hurt at night, and her tummy coiled to the point where her hunger vanished, only to return, after feeding time was over (and she had been shouted at, forced to finish food she did not liked, and stayed at the table, miserable, for hours, until her mother grew impatient and took the food away) . If Derek was caught eating at wrong hours, the cycle started again. 

She is now running out to the backyard, jumping the little gate of the hallway outside, and running towards the park, just on the other side of the streets. The wooden house, too small for adults and tall enough to be out of their reach, but still close enough to return safely, was her little heaven. She hid in the middle of the tube slide, where she wasn't able to see outside, and she wasn't visible inside. It was like a little pocket of the world, only for herself and her thoughts. She traced patterns with her fingers on the ceiling of the slide, and furthered the plot of one of the stories on her mind, where she was living with a long lost brother of hers, learning magic and travelling the world at their will in search of ancient books, scrolls, memories, rests, anything that would teach them magic. It was based on a crazy dream she had a year ago. She saw a woman, that talked to her.  
None of her words were on a language she had heard before, but the meaning was clear, in a whole different way that her english worked. She talked about a link between their blood and flesh, and something that ties them more than that, the divine essence they shared, that belonged to the whole, the rest of everything. Then Derek sees a boy, older than her, and they are setting camp on some wood, somewhere. The air is cold on their nostrils, as they listen to some conversation they can’t really recall how it went, but she was being taught magic, and they needed to find a book, from another sibling of them, long dead, that had studied deeply about pocket dimensions, or altered inner spaces, like giant bags, that weighed almost nothing and didn't looked out of the ordinary, but carried whole libraries, with tables and soft couches to read. Some even contained gardens, rooms full of giant beds with feather stuffed pillows. The trees, surroinding them, and providing shade fom the warm sun. The boy in front of her, fluffy looking brown hair and warm earthy eyes, he wore a soft blue sweater, and gesticulated widely with his long arms and fingers. His eyes shined with excitment and a blue unnatural glow, just around his pupil, soft but constant.  
“And we could turn my tent on a really really nice thing, with a room for each, an alchemy lab, with two sets, for the two of us. and a bath and all of the books we want to take with us. Il teach it to you as soon as you can make a spell as complicated as that, but not now, it can consume you to use more magic than what you have on your body” He pressed a thumb to his neck, making a slicing motion, and pulling his tongue out and crossing his eyes  
Then she had awakened and, incapable of making her brain restart the story after going back to sleep, she had continued it herself, imagining that they had to steal it from an evil witch that lived on a tall tower, that was a castle with never ending doors. They discovred something new at every door, until they had eventually reached a vault, where they found the book ona pedestal, illuminated by a heavenly light. When they took it, traps were deployed, and they had to fight and sort a series of tests, in order to escape alive.  
Derek daydreamed for what fely like an eternity, until her legs had began to grow numb, and she twisted and slided out of her protective hiding spot.  
She sat at the edge of the slide, patting her legs through the needles to bring them back to having normal circulation.  
There was a rustle, on the bushes near to where she was sitting. She froze, body tense and mind flying with diferent possibilities. There was a beat, and a cat walked into her line of sight.  
She cooed, and clicked her tongue to try and attract the animal towards her. The cat observed her, inteligent eyes studying the offered fingers, and approached with cautious steps. Derek let the cat smelk her fingers and heatbutt her hand before scratching her ears and neck. The cat arched, pressing his fur to her and purring approvingly. They played for a while. The cat was the softest thing she had touched, and their eyes held no judgement or rage, only curiosity.  
Their games took Derek all ovet the park, further and further away from her house, without her realizing it. After some time, she looked around, and decided that being lost, was much better than whatever was waiting for her back there. In her mind's eye, her unstable and predictable mother would be waiting for her. Lips pursed and a serious expression. She would ask Derek where she was, and lash out at the little girl, no matter her answer.  
So, Derek kept following the cat into new territory. It was the middle of spring, so the air was warm as the sun began to hide away, and Derek began to look for a place to sleep. It was luck that she found an abandoned place. Vines grew uncontrolled on the walls, and the windows were cracked, some missing. With a huge smile, Derek entered the place, and declared it hers to hide away. She slipped into her neighbor's houses to steal food, clothes, cleaning supplies and other assorted stuff she thought she might need. Books, notebooks and pencils. She had to learn how to cook, trying to remember everything she had seen her parents and people on the tv doing. She did cut her fingers a few times, and she then had to learn to deal with cuts, and the pain, and the blood and the mess. There was always a mess.  
The cat stayed with her, coming and going as he pleased. Derek had named him Slide, and loved to steal pieces from Derek's plate, before he was done with his own food.  
The first time he disappeared for a whole day, Derek had been worried sick by nightfall. Was he ok? Was he hungry? Had he been hurt somehow? When he returned home, she had been ready to yell and forbid him from going out.  
But her own mom's words were the only one she had to express such feelings. With a sinking horror feeling on her chest, she hugged him and pet his fur while thinking about this.  
Who was she, to forbid him to do something that might make him happy? Maybe he had another family, what did she knew of this cat, really? He shouldn't have to change his behaviour, just because she felt some feelings, that was what her own mother did.  
So, the next day she entered the houses she knew to have cats, and got treats, toys, more food and anything a cat would want to be happy.  
They had been living for a month on that hause, and Derek was better than she had ever been before. No one told her what to wear, what to eat, when to sleep or how to talk. All she did all day was read, explore and play with her cat.  
She was walking towards the park, with a book on her hands and a bag full of fruit and candies, freshly stolen. Slide was walking besides her, nose up, trying to decipher what was she carrying.  
There was a growl.  
Low at first, like a car's engine. But it became higher, and more inhumane. Derek froze, and before her eyes, a huge a beast was walking down the street. It was like something out of one of her books. It had sharp claws, that Derek heard grinding on the pavement with every step it took. It walked on four legs, and its fur was dark green, dirty and covered with dark wet patches. Its head moved from one side to the other, sniffing the air. Its eyes were bright yellow, furious and hungry. It looked at her, and the growling stopped.  
Slide was hissing furiously, all of his hair pointing upwards. Derek extended a hand to him, and he climbed her with ease, settling on her arms and hiding his head on the crook of her arms.  
-do you know him? - she asked in a whisper. The cat didn't answered her.  
But it was like her voice was the signal the monster had been waiting for. He howled, and began charging towards them.  
Derek knew that they couldn't outrun it. But she wasn't gonna let some oversized dog monster eat her cat. She planted her feet on the ground, and glared ahead. As the monster came closer, she raised her palm, and growled defiantly.  
There was a surge of energy through her body, and a green dome appeared in front of her. The monster head slammed into the dome, and Derek felt the punch, like the dome was an extension of her own body. The monster growled again, its voice was muffled by the dome, and scratched at the dome, bringing one enormous paw over it.  
Derek screamed in pain, and fell on her knees, but her palm was still outstretched and the dome held.  
The monster kept hitting the dome, again and again, relentlessly. She knew she wouldn't be able to hold forever. She hoped the monster would grow bored, and let them alone.  
Slide growled.  
-Why couldn't you pick a fight with another cat? - she lamented herself, and he meowed as a response. The monster described a circle around them, furious eyes searching for a way in.  
Derek screamed at the same time he jumped over the dome, pushing her palm upwards. The dome flyed up, following her movement, and it dissolved, energy spent pushing the monster up in the air. It fell a few feet away from them, over the playhouse of the park. Derek had fell to the ground. She felt like she had been exercising for hours. All of her body felt like jelly, and she barely had any strength left to raise her head and search for the monster. Instead, she saw a boy on the edge of her eye sight . With a huge effort, she crooked her head on that direction, and recognized the boy of her dreams.  
With the thought that it was a very weird phrase to think, she slipped into unconsciousness.  
When she awakened, Daniel had gave her a restorative potion to help her body recover, and made her drink a bit of nectar.  
She was still on the street, Slide was breathing heavily next to her ear, and the boy of her dreams was sitting right in front of her, his features were a bit blurred, but she remembered his fluffy hair, the long scar on his cheek, and the tattoos showing on his neck and forearms. She incorporated, and blinked a few times. Her vision cleared, and there he was, looking at her with the same kind of wonder she was feeling. The monster was gone.  
-I dreamt about you, you are Derek- he spat, and his voice was exactly what she remembered-A few months ago  
-Me too, but i don’t know your name.- she said, weakly- There was also a woman on my dream, speaking a language in don’t know but I understood. She said she was my mother, do you think that was also real?  
The boy nodded  
-I’m Daniel. And she is my mother too. The goddess of magic  
Derek stared at her fingers. She wasn’t as dull as the adults, to doubt the truth of what she was seeing and feeling.  
-So, that makes you my brother?- He nodded  
-Yes, we have a lot of siblings, you know?- He added with a soft smile- Well, where do you live? Do you have a mortal family?  
Derek hesitated, and his smile was understanding  
-Hard time with them?-Derek nodded- Yeah, is not unusual with our kind  
-Our kind?  
-Demigods, you and I. Mortals don’t usually mix well with us.  
-Are we inmortal?  
-Well… we can still die, but if you are careful, you could live a looong time. I’ve met demigods that have lived for centuries.  
Derek thought about living forever. She didn’t really had anyone that she loved, other than Slide, and her books. But she already knew that Slide would probably live much less than her.  
-You mean… you mean all of the greek gods and the myths are true?  
-Yes. A lot of other gods and myths are also real, but they don’t usually mix. Great powers divide different kind of realities  
-Did you kill the monster?  
He crooked his head  
-Well, monsters never really die, y’know? But we can send their essences to Tartarus…  
-The pit- she exclaimed, excited for knowing something in advance- It’s below the underworld, right?  
-Exactly. Listen- He looked around, alert- We can’t stay in the open for too long, something could find us. Do you want to come to my camp? I could teach you magic?  
Her eyes widened, with a happy glint in them  
-Really? You would do that?  
-Of course, you are my sister. I can teach you everything I know about magic. 

II  
Alex did remembered the last time he had been on a garden. The ground and everything around him had felt alive and full of information for him to absorb. He remembers thinking that the soil was the place were he came from, and the place where he will end up on. He also remembers the feeling of blooming flowers on the tip of his fingers, and the taste of the ashes on his tongue. But her mother had locked the door, and he hadn't been able to open it ever since.  
He was also forbidden from going to the park, or outside, generally. He spends his days inside, reading the same old boring books, watching the same and growing dull movies.  
He slept a lot, and avoided his mother, when she was around. When she wasn't, Alex stole her much more interesting books, and saw her ever-growing collection of movies and series.  
He was looking out to the window, wondering if this time his mother would remind him today he turned four, like she had done last year, or would she just ignore him like she did every day.  
A woman appeared on the lawn. She was tall. Her skin was dark as the clothes she wore, and, on her ears and neck, gold shone and vibrated brightly. It was like a bee was moving slowly through the air, singing only for Alex to hear. He wanted to touch her gold, and raised himself on his hands when she began to walk towards their door. Alex had never seen someone else inside their house, and he turned to the kitchen, where his mother was cooking.  
-mmmaaa- he said, with difficulty. He had learned to read, slowly with what she had given him, but he wasn't allowed to speak. And to mimick her sounds when he barely heard them himself, was rather hard. He had just starting to learn to do that with the help of the television  
There was a loud crash. And a curse.  
-the fuck i told you 'bout making sounds, child? - came her gruff voice from the kitchen. And a few seconds later, she appeared on the living room, Alex pointed at the woman looking at them through the window.  
His mother' s eyes were as cold as always.  
-go get your stuff- she ordered  
Alex stayed where he was  
-don't you hear me boy? - she repeated, louder- pack all your shit and come back down, don't make me wait.  
He ran upstairs, and filled the case she had brought him a week before. It was old, smelly and as tall as him. It fit the few things he owned with a lot of extra space.  
He walked downstairs, struggling with the case, and arrived next to his mother staying at two arms length, as she always demanded.  
The new woman took his hand, and he jumped from the contact. No one had touched him before. It was a weird feeling, the warmth of her palm surrounding his was oddly comforting  
-well- said his mother, with a final tone to her voice- goodbye.  
Then she nodded to the new woman and returned to the kitchen.  
Alex was left alone with this woman, who took his case with her other hand, and took them both to the door. It was open, and Alex had been staring through it since he had came downstairs.  
He could smell the grass from where he was standing, and when she began to move, he realized he was going to be taken outside.  
He couldn't help it when his feet took him further than what her hand allowed him to go. He hesitated, but she didn't let their hands slip, so he waited for her to keep up.  
He wasn't allowed to move further than that, but he could move in any direction. He tried to smell and see and hear everything he could, but too soon, he was being shoved inside a car.  
His disappointment for not being able to be outside was quickly replaced by the curiosity for this car. His mother had never allowed him into hers, and he climbed on the seat, inspecting everything and pressing his face to the window  
-sit down- the woman ordered  
. He did, immediately , body tense and hands curled into fists.. he needed to contain his curiosity. After so long practicing, it was becoming easier.  
-do y'know who i am?  
He shook his head  
-My name is Ava- she put the safety belt around his body- i'm the witch your mother promised her firstborn to, did you knew that?  
Alex nodded, slowly. He did knew he belonged to a witch since before her mother had been pregnant with him. He wasn't sure what it meant.  
-don't you talk?  
He shook his head again, and the woman arched a dark eyebrow. Alex squirmed and hurried to try and say something. His heart began to beat furiously on his chest, and his face burned.  
-ma.. Mamm says.. Says louw sildre… Shildren.. Laud children..  
She huffed, and he felt silent.  
-what kind of woman…?- she cut herself and shook her head- don't matter. We'll just have to teach you. You still young. You will make a fine soldier-she traced his face with her finger, and his whole body lighted with something that left him on edge and shaking.  
Then she closed the door, making him jump on his seat. She sat in front of the wheel, and let him stare at the window for the rest of the ride without more questions.  
His eyes devoured everything, and he only understood half of what he was seeing. They were going too fast, but it was much better that the same rooms and the same books and closed doors.  
They arrived at a white mansion. It was surrounded by a gorgeous garden Alex could hear from where he was standing. It was vibrating with life, and something else Alex had never felt before. Something twisted that made him want to run away.  
But Ava took his hand again, and he was forced into the mansion.  
He walked along her, and the blooms on every bush and tree around him seemed to turn their petals towards him as he walked by them, and he, momentarily, had a weird sensation of calm.  
It passed as soon as they climbed the stairs. Another woman, with similar clothes but lighter hair and skin was waiting for them.  
She held a golden tray, with a glass filled to the brim with a bubbly black liquid that filled the air with a putrid smell.  
She offered it to him, and he retched, shaking his head and trying to turn away. But they grabbed him, pressed the glass to his lips and once it was on his mouth, one of them held his body as the other pressed his mouth close. After a while of him refusing to swallow and trying to free himself, she pinched his nose. As his lungs began to struggle for air, his body spasmed. When she released his nose, the desperate draw of breath also made him swallow most of the liquid. He went limp against the arms holding him, panting and coughing rather violently.  
Even as they both forced him to drink that awful thing, their hold felt warm against his skin. He drank it like a starving child, and began to cry, silently, as he had learned to do.  
His mind began to fill with syrup. He was placed on the ground.  
Steps, he walked for a while.  
White bright walls surrounded him.  
Steps echoed.  
Voices murmured, far away. Very far away and next to his head. His head. It was bigger, it expanded, pressure on his scalp and lightness on the spaces between his brain and bigger head.  
He lifted a hand to touch his head. Hair was on the same place as always. Wasn't his head growing? He was sure his head had been growing, growing, growing, growing, growing.  
He stopped, surrounded by the hand on his. Other four women were waiting for them.  
Where were all this women coming from? There weren't enough shadows around him. Her voices mixed and words blurred. He heard. Heard them talk and talk. They chatted, communicating with each other. But the call of the garden was stronger. The grass muttered, irritated. But the flowers sang. They sang in chorus, harmonies that swarmed his head and he turned, turning like a sunflower. The sun was food, but wasn't the sun the opposite of shadows?  
It froze and crashed. Sun was food, but shadows constructed tunnels.  
His legs swinged back and forth with the tap tap tap tap echoing on his ears.  
Tap tap tap. A cacophony of sharp and dull followed him. Tap. Taptap. His arm was pulled from the warmth encasing it , and his whole body followed it. Tap tap  
Again and again and again taptaptap.  
He was sitting again, in a new room with not one shadow. Touch! The woman touched him again and his heart fluttered for a second. Her warmth was replaced by hard unmoving holds.  
He was lying down, couldn't move, couldn't see. Darkness was good, but he had to move. His hands. Why can't he lift them?  
His whole body shook in search of movement. He needed to sta-  
Another liquid was pressed to his mouth. He turned. Gagged. Trashed, and raged, but his lungs burned and his head was too big.  
It was awful on his tongue, bitter. But worse on his throat. Burned. Liquid fire weny though his throat, his chest, his tummy. It spread, his whole body burned down, and that was the end of him  
It burned. Again and again and again.  
It burned, because it was too cold sometimes. So cold his body shut off. But then again he was gagging and burning.  
Time meant nothing. Seconds passed in a burning haze. Had he been awake the whole time? It was always too bright, but he couldn't see.  
The only shadow in this room was pressed to his eyes and he clinged to it like a lifeline. His skin burned, now from outside. Cold and sharp and thin broke his skin.  
And he bled. He bled and bled and his blood shouted curses that he didn't knew. His blood cursed him, binding him and he was sitting in the dark as his body never stopped trashing. He sat, silent, on the back of his own mind, it never occurred to him to move, he couldn't, his blood was binding him.  
He sat down, as he bled even more, and when the curses quieted down, so did his body. Soft, limp, quiet.  
It was bright, still.  
He was lying down. He was waiting. 

At some point, his blindfold was removed. The light in the room blinded him, and his eyes closed again.  
-open your eyes- a clear voice commanded.  
He obeyed, and his eyes burned. Still, he didn't blink. He still was lying down on the same cold surface he had been for the past eternity. Hands and feet tied down by something firm that burned the skin that touched it. He made no sounds, his face made no expression.  
-did you enjoyed your time with my daughters? - he shook his head - good. The potions should have tied up nicely your consciousness and the worst part of your power, can’t really have my pets thinking their own thoughts and being much more powerful than myself, can’t I?  
There was a giggle, and Alex’s hands and feet were released. Still he didn’t move, he hadn’t been told to.  
-Your training will start in two hours- said the voice, and another woman appeared on his line of vision. Her clothes were as white as everything else on the mansion and her smile was sweet, even if her eyes were cold and calculating, irises glowing with an unnatural purple color.  
He was dressed in white clothes, and taken to a different room. Everything was white, bright and hurt his eyes. The new room he was taken to was spacious, the floor felt softer, and other ten children were waiting in line, they all dressed the same clothes that he had. He stood where his master had told her. Not a word left her mouth, but his brain was hers to do as she pleased, and information was fed to him through channels that had not been there before. She gave him a bronze knife, and his hand seemed to fit perfectly on the handle, fingers curling on cold leather, fashioned specially for him.  
-Kill the child next to you- she commanded him, and his hand moved immediately. Before anyone of them could react, he had slammed the blade into the neck of the girl standing next to her. He took it out, and her body went limp, falling to the floor in a growing pool of blood. His face still held no expression, and the screams of the rest of them slided over him like he hadn't even heard them.  
His master placed a finger on her lips, eyes glowing brighter, and there was silence, no sound coming from the still moving mouths of horrified children.  
She kneeled in front of Alex, her sweet smile never wavering  
-Did you enjoyed it?  
-I don’t have that capability anymore, master- he said, in a monotone voice that the children would learn to dread and avoid like the plague.  
Her clear and gentle laughter would haunt their dreams for their rest of their lives, but Alex barely registered it beyond what it meant. His master was pleased.  
-Good- she praised again, and turned towards the children- Mistakes will be severely punished. But disobedience will not be tolerated, and your minds will be emptied like his. Take him as an example and don’t disappoint me  
The children hurried to mimic his posture, even if their faces weren’t as empty of expression as his was. The corpse began to levitate behind her as she left the room. Two of the women on the identical uniforms that had brought them entered the training rooms, and their training began.


End file.
